playing on the violoncello, attended by two boys; it was then screened from the weather by a curtain, which was drawn up when the visitors arrived. Mr. Tyers's plans were crowned with success. Fashion was enthusiastic on the subject of Vauxhall. Royalty patronized; the nobility protected and promoted; and the general public crowded Mr. Tyers's handsome pleasure-grounds. The ladies promenaded in their hoops, sacques, and caps, as they appeared in their own drawing-rooms: the beaux of the period were in attendance, with swords and powdered bag-wigs, their three-cornered hats under their arms. Read Walpole's account (in another letter to George Montagu) of his visit in 1750. He accompanied Lady Caroline Petersham and little Miss Ashe--or 'the Pollard Ashe,' as it pleases him to describe her. The ladies had just put on their last layer of rouge, 'and looked as handsome as crimson could make them.' They proceed in a barge, a boat of French horns attending, and little Miss Ashe singing. Parading some time up the river they at last debark at Vauxhall, and there pick up Lord Granby, 'arrived very drunk from Jenny's Whim'--a tavern at Chelsea frequented by his lordship and other gentlemen of fashion. Assembled in their supper-box, Lady Caroline, 'looking gloriously jolly and handsome,' minces seven chickens in a china dish (Lord Orford, Horace's brother, assisting), and stews them over a lamp, with three pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring, and rattling, and laughing: the company expecting the dish to fly about their ears every minute. Then Betty, the famous fruit-woman from St. James's Street, is in attendance with hampers of strawberries and cherries, waits upon the guests, and afterwards sits down to her own supper at a side table. The company become, by-and-by, a little boisterous in their merriment, and attract the attention of the other visitors; there is soon quite a concourse round Lady Caroline's box, till Harry Vane fills a bumper and toasts the bystanders, and is proceeding to treat them with still greater freedom. 'It was three o'clock before we got home,' concludes Walpole. Such was a fashionable frolic at Vauxhall under Mr. Tyers's management: when Roubiliac's statue of Handel stood in the midst. [4] 'The Clandestine Marriage.'